Classroom Discussion

Talking about ideas and observations with other people encourages us to work toward a better understanding of a question and to formulate a logical presentation of our thinking. Robust discussions involve key practices of science such as gathering and using information, arguing from evidence, and constructing explanations. Consequently, discussions among students in the classroom provide a great way for students to engage with complex ideas. However, asking students to discuss doesn’t automatically mean that the discussion is a robust learning opportunity. A discussion loses its pedagogical value when the participants know very little about the topic of discussion. Such discussions can create misconceptions and reinforce preconceived notions, making them less than fruitful.

Below, we offer some suggestions and guidelines for meaningfully-investigative classroom discussions along with a few suggested questions to discuss arising from Boomtown Atoll by Arthur H. Manners.

We break the classroom discussion resources below into two parts: 1) Possible discussion topics arising from Boomtown Atoll, and 2) Pedagogical suggestions for a successful class discussion.

Possible Discussion Topics

1) Natural Resources.

The story introduces several avenues for discussion related to natural resources, such as a reference to Rare Earth Elements (REE). Students might consider questions such as: What are REE? Where do REE occur naturally? What natural chemical or physical processes concentrate them to make ores? What type of manufacturing/smelting processes are needed to concentrate them further and make them into a form that can be used by people? Why are REE important?

The story implies that mining is no longer a “thing” in this world, with all resources being recycled. There are a number of questions that might arise from this implication, such as: How much of a resource can be recovered by recycling the world’s trash? Some percentage of loss will be experienced during recycling, however diligent the recycling might be—or perhaps a better way to think about this is that increasing efficiency of recovery takes ever greater amounts of energy and effort. What is the best-case rate of resource loss during recycling. How might this constraint affect the economy going forward (for example, does it force a declining population or declining standard of living)? What is the difference today in the cost of recycling and reprocessing versus mining and smelting of a particular ore? What is the source of those cost differences and how might they impact the world of Boomtown Atoll?

2) Resource Economics of a Post-Capitalist Society

Preliminary note: Economics and societal decision making are not necessarily essential topics for a science class. However, in the Earth sciences, the connections between the mechanisms of ore formation and the economics of extracting that resource are interrelated. Working geologists must combine their expertise in resource formation, occurrence, and management with an understanding of economics. Unsurprising, then, that the Next Generation Science Standards places an emphasis on the connection between science and society (see NGSS Appendix J: Science, Technology, Society, and the Environment). We think that discussing the science of natural resources along with the human component of making decisions about using or reusing that resource are appropriate for the science classroom.

The story portrays a world where capitalism, as we know it, and even currency, are abandoned ideas of a troubled past. However, moving into a post-capitalist world without money is unlikely to be easy, presenting far more challenges than the problematic “attitudes” that are portrayed as the hurdles in the story. For example, free market capitalism has been a very successful means to both distribute wealth and motivate productivity. Students might consider a variety of questions such as: What is self-interest-driven free market capitalism? Are there other kinds of capitalism? Are there other kinds of free markets? What is the history, successes, and failures of capitalism? If this world is post-capitalist, what methods of wealth distribution and productivity motivation could replace it and how would they work? Are there any clues in the story to how the economy might be working in the world of Boomtown Atoll?

One of the well-known failures of self-interest-driven free market capitalism is sometimes called the Tragedy of the Commons. What is the tragedy of the commons and how does it relate to the situation in Boomtown Atoll? What economic incentives or government enforcements (or other creative methodologies) might prevent the tragedy of the commons? Does Boomtown Atoll provide any hints at how the problem of tragedy of the commons is prevented in the world of the story, and, if so, how?

Economies run on the exchange of goods and services. Although ancient people might have bartered or traded for goods, services, social obligations, or status, people have used abstract tools (money) to represent value and exchange for thousands of years, using things like salt, beans, or seashells even when a currency (like coins) didn’t exist. This suggests that the abstraction of money into currency has significant value. Questions for discussion might include: Why has symbolic expressions of money been used so pervasively in the human past? What does using currency for money give us? What is different and the same about more modern forms of money, such as credit cards, crypto currencies, checks, etc.? How might a currency-free society, like implied in Boomtown Atoll, work?

3) The best questions for discussion might be ones that students present! What questions can your students ask about Boomtown Atoll?

It should be clear that students need to be able to make significant contributions to any discussion to make it meaningful (otherwise it is either an information-less waste of time or a stealth teacher lecture). Making significant contributions means that students need to have thoughts of their own to present. That is unlikely to be true for any of the challenging questions above unless students have researched the question ahead of time. We suggest a preliminary assignment in which students research aspects of the question(s) online and come to class with handwritten notes that include at least 3 points that they can make in the discussion, with each point including a headline idea or question they want to present along with a 3-4 sentence summary of that point, the constraints on it, the evidence for it, the implications of it. The handwritten element helps ensure that they actually engage with thinking about the points rather than simply cutting and pasting material from an AI summary which they may not have really thought about or understood.

Discussion Pedagogy

Introduction

How do you get your students to talk productively about science ideas? Students generally talk volumes throughout the school day. But that gold standard, of engaging with important ideas, listening to one another, disagreeing with one another, responding to and adding on to the ideas of others . . . what can we teachers do to develop and nurture those skills. What are those discussion skills?

During productive discussions, people usually listen to one another, don’t interrupt, and wait for a lull to add their ideas. Adults often refer back to what someone said previously, they add to that idea, or question that idea. They ask others to repeat what they said, to restate something in a new way, or to expand on a particular thought. While these discussions might seem to happen by magic, the skills of listening, taking turns, referring back, asking questions, and disagreeing respectfully can be taught to, and practiced by, students.

The learning curve of productive talk in a classroom is steep and often bumpy. Your best laid plans will go awry and sometimes students don’t want to discuss, or sometimes a student will dominate the discussion. But perseverance will pay off and the journey is worth the payoff. In my (Mary’s) classroom, after 3-4 months of cultivating productive discourse students were, on their own, using the skills they’d been learning.

Some of the ideas presented below are adapted from “Engaging Students in Disciplinary Core Ideas Through the Integration of Science and Engineering Practices While Making Connections to the Crosscutting Concepts,” Chapter 3, by Mary Colson in Preparing Teachers for Three-Dimensional Instruction Jack Rhoton, Ed, NSTA Press, 2018, 166pp.

Nurturing good discussions in the classroom–key components

1. Students should have something to say. That means they need time to find/develop their thoughts before they talk.

2. Students need to practice sharing ideas in low pressure, less public settings. Encouraging students to write ideas down and/or talk to a partner provide an initial engagement in a lower stakes setting than a whole-class discussion

3. Any talk time with a partner or small group should have a time limit. If students think they have unlimited time, they’ll yak about everything else and only focus on the topic when it’s time to end the conversation.

4. Make the small group discussions accountable to the whole class by having small groups report to the whole class.

5. Have periodic whole class discussions with you as a moderator. Put the desks in a circle or rectangle; kids can’t/won’t discuss if they can’t see and hear each other. Imagine expecting adults to sit in rows, all facing the same direction and then asking them to carry on a discussion. They’d turn their bodies and/or desks so they could face each other. You have to make the environment conducive for students to listen, question, and discuss.

During whole-class discussions: 1) Teach students to not rely on you for “the right answer” by redirecting a student’s idea or question back to the class; 2) Step in if things start to spiral – e.g. one kid just says his opinion over and over and in a louder voice; 3) Model good conversation behavior yourself, be respectful of student ideas. Use the sentence frames yourself that you give your students (like those provided below); 4) Be patient – listening and discussing skills take time to build (takes a lifetime actually); 5) Value what your students think – model asking questions, being genuinely curious about their ideas; 6) Ask questions that press students to think about ideas they haven’t yet considered.

6. Have students write about their takeaways from a whole class discussion. It might also be helpful to find out how students are feeling about the discussion. For example, did they feel listened to? Did they feel challenged? Did they feel challenged instead of listened to?

7. Help students to ask good questions. Yes/no questions are not inherently bad, but a steady diet of them stifles thinking. Invite expansive thinking with questions that explore how or why, or questions that explore the difference between evidence and explanation. Teach them to use the language of the practices and crosscutting concepts of the Next Generation Science Standards in developing their own questions.

Nurturing good discussions in the classroom–strategies

Think, Pair, Share – That is, give students time to think on a question individually, then pair up with someone else to share their thoughts and arguments. To make this strategy work smoothly, students should already be paired up, and KNOW who their partners are. My classroom desks were always arranged in pairs, so I didn’t have to waste time pairing people up. Give silent time for individuals to think and write. I gave 2-5 minutes and did not allow kids who finished early to chat during the silent think/write time. Give a couple of minutes to share with their partner. Always put a time limit on the tasks, otherwise students feel no pressure to finish a task. This strategy could also be used to do online research, synthesize ideas individually, and then report out to a partner.

Sentence Frames – Students often don’t know how to start a sentence that captures what they are thinking. Below are some pre-formed sentence “frames” that I keep posted in the classroom to help students begin:

I agree with _____ because _____.

I heard you say _____. Is that right?

I disagree with _____ because ____.

Could you say that again?

I heard you say ____, but I was wondering _____.

ConverSTATIONS – In this strategy, students work in their lab groups, perhaps developing a model, then one or two students from a group move to another lab station, see what the new group is thinking and how they modeled their thoughts. The visiting students add their ideas and ask questions. The visiting students then return to their home base to discuss any new ideas that have popped up, and modify their existing model.

I used this strategy toward the end of a lesson (or unit), particularly when students were developing their ideas to explain how or why somethings was working the way it was. For example, why do we see a waning crescent moon only in the early morning hours?

White Board Meetings – In this strategy, students use a small white board (18” x 24”) in their small group to record ideas, drawings, data, etc. They refer to the information on their white board when they report out to the whole class. The group reporting out is in charge of soliciting questions and ideas from the classroom and moderating that discussion (i.e. responding to classmates, choosing which student contributes next).

I used this strategy when I wanted lots of new ideas to permeate the collective classroom thought. I also used this strategy if students were working on different aspects of the same problem.

The Stoic Teacher – Don’t give too much away too fast! Give students time to figure out and think on their own. It’s ok to say ‘I don’t know’ or to ask a question, like “Tell me more about what you’re thinking of _____?” Or perhaps you can respond with a question that presses students to think more deeply about their ideas, or to question their ideas. You can use the science and engineering practices or the crosscutting concepts (from the Next Generation Science Standards) to help you, the teacher, ask better questions. For example, instead of asking, ‘What is your data telling you?’ you might ask ‘What kinds of patterns do you see in your data?’ Looking for patterns is a crosscutting concept and part of the practice of analyzing and interpreting data.

Resources to nurture high quality classroom discussion

Talk Science Primer (from TERC) https://inquiryproject.terc.edu/shared/pd/TalkScience_Primer.pdf
Checklist: Goals for Productive Discussions and Nine Talk Moves https://inquiryproject.terc.edu/prof_dev/Goals_and_Moves.cfm.html
Talk Moves Flowchart https://stemteachingtools.org/sp/talk-flowchart
Science Discourse Primer (Ambitious Science Teaching) https://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Discourse-Primer.pdf

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The Teacher Resources for Boomtown Atoll are written by Russ and Mary Colson, authors of Learning to Read the Earth and Sky.

Return to Boomtown Atoll by Aurthur H. Manners

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